Being in a different country isn't going to stop me from observing my tradition of writing a year-end post. since i don't have internet connected yet (i'll hotspot and post after i finish writing to save on data), i can't check how many years it's been since i started this practice. i'd guess more than 10, less than 15. one thing i'm definitely sure of - it's the first time i'm writing my year-end post outside of singapore. let me briefly recount today's happenings before going into the usual year-end post content.

i drove to kochi city today, with the objective of getting a futon and perhaps other things from the nitori there. it was closed, which upset me a bit. i suppose i should have checked first, too. business resumes on 2nd january, but i'm expecting that it'll be ridiculously crowded, so the plan is to see if i can order online after my internet is done. although i like driving, driving for an hour on a one-lane road is not my idea of a good time. i think i'm slowly coming out of the tourist/idealized mindset that i have towards japan, because i found myself getting annoyed at some drivers! it's the same few aggravating factors - not signalling before turning, braking unnecessarily, just being morons in general. still, i was determined not to make a wasted trip, so i went to the K's denki in the city. got myself a router and some other accessories, as well as one of my best purchases to date - kotatsu leg extensions. so now, the table is elevated, which means i can fit more of myself and my seat underneath it. going to come in handy for raiding, i think, though i still need a good monitor to complete the set-up.

now, back to our regularly-scheduled programming. i don't think anyone would/could say that 2020 was a good year for them. that's why my theme for this year is "the year the earth stood still". other candidates include "the year that shouldn't have been", "big things come in small packages", "a year of waiting", "leaving on a JET plane" (quite proud that i thought of that last one). if you've been following my posts, you should get most of the references. COVID was (and still is) a universal monkey wrench in everyone's plans; i can't think of anybody that hasn't been affected by it. ok, maybe people/tribes that haven't had contact with modern civilization are the exception...but other than that, we've all felt the effect of COVID, one way or another. whether it's something serious like losing one's job, or a minor inconvenience like having to wear masks everywhere and not being able to meet more than 4 other people at a go. personally, i'm grateful that i haven't been affected very seriously. although i had to wear a mask or face shield for tuition, at least i got to keep that job, without a pay cut too. more than that, i got to leave on my own terms for another opportunity, and an overseas one, to boot! i don't think all that many people have had the experience of flying during a pandemic.

as of now, i've been in japan for a month and a week, and officially in my JET placement for almost 3 weeks. tomorrow's my third-week anniversary, in fact. it's definitely too early to say whether going on JET was a good decision or not in relation to my whole life story, but it's a new experience, and having new experiences can't be all that bad, right? broadening of horizons, wider perspectives, and all that. right now, i can say that it's overall good based on my experiences so far. not perfect, but good. there have been many learning opportunities and instances that have put me out of my comfort zone, and those are opportunities for growth. my current thought is that i want to do at least 2 years - spend a year figuring things out and making mistakes, and having another year minimum to do things "correctly".

other than the main quest of enjoying japan, my sidequest for the JET period, however long it may be, is to prepare for life after JET. my opinion is that it's currently still a bit too early for me to think about that in too much detail. there are a few big questions that i need to answer, though. singapore or japan? what kind of job? like i told my professor, the eventual goal is to return to science. whether it's scientific IP, lab-based work, or even teaching. actually, i'd probably consider teaching chemistry in an english-medium university here. good to have ideas like that, i guess. personal deadline is to have more concrete answers by my first year.

my mentor figure also told me that his vision for me in japan is for me to "level up". what that means, according to him, is that i need to learn to be "deeper" and more sophisticated, perhaps. i was going to say "complicated", but that carries a negative connotation. this "depth" comes from accumulating life experience and being exposed to thoughts and ideas different from one's own, so i'd say that i'm off to a good start. in addition, he wants me to be a good english teacher, to the point where the town won't want to part with me. that's a tall order, i think, considering how JETs come and go. but it seems that i've made a decent/good (at least not a bad) impression so far, so that's going for me. only time will tell how that is going to evolve, and that starts with the new school term in january.

JET and associated events aside, 2020 has actually been pretty boring. most of it was spent waiting for JET updates. i know people say that life is what happens between the big events (or something to that effect), but there didn't seem to be anything doable in the space between the various phases. i'm grateful that i decided to try healthy living, with some results. but i realize that for me at least, the best way to do the healthy living thing is a change of environment. sure, people mean well, but you know the proverb (idiom?) about the road to hell. there's another saying from the gaming world which i paraphrase as "be not afraid of powerful enemies, but be very afraid of lousy teammates". it's a thought that i've had more than once. i don't need people to help me towards my goal of healthy living. all i need is for them to not place impediments in my path. and now that i'm living alone, it's the best time for me to live my words, because there's nobody for me to blame except myself now if i don't see results.

no relationship news to speak of this year, which is hardly surprising. my plan of finding someone at the gym failed! no, just kidding. kochi city had a rainbow town declaration recently (i wasn't imagining it!), and along with kochi being the birthplace of sakamoto ryoma (a samurai who welcomed foreigners to japan), i have hope that being LGBT here won't be an issue. as you know, i already had a positive experience with my supervisor's family. but still, that doesn't give me license to be unprofessional. this is all the more important now, because i'm in a foreign country, and most of my friendships/interactions will be from work. becoming a not-liked figure at work would make life much less fun.

friendships stayed about the same, i think. i'm blessed in that the friendships that i consider important don't grow weaker with time, even if we don't interact that much. i'm looking forward to hosting my friends here, once flying for tourism is given the green light again. should probably tell them to plan to make this a stop along a road trip or something. planning a whole holiday around coming specifically to see me would be a bit of a waste.

quite surprising, that for a supposedly boring year, i still managed to write so much about it. there were good days filled with excitement and positivity, as well as bad days filled with uncertainty and melancholy. the day i handed over the civic stands out as a particularly bad day. i think that was the one day in the entire year where my spirits were the lowest, to the point where not even the knowledge that i was scheduled to fly to japan literally the very next day helped lift my mood. but that's all in the past. everything that i've done so far has led me to my current point in life, so in a sense, everything worked out ok. hoping that next year will be better, although given how this year turned out, being better shouldn't be hard.

-random thought of the day: Temperatures dipped into the negatives today.-

On a normal workday, i'd be getting ready to knock off right about now, so the fact that i'm already blogging means it's not a normal workday. apparently, japan has a practice where all civil servants' last workday of the year is 28 december. guess which genius didn't know about it, and showed up to work on the 29th? this is an example of japan being a high-context society, where things are often mutually understood and thus not explicitly stated. great if you're japanese, because you're already born into the "hive mind", less great if you're a foreigner because they assume that you understand regardless of whether you actually do or not! in this case, they actually conveyed the message to me...not explicitly, but in japanese code. you see, when you leave work before others, you declare "お先に失礼します", which translates to "i'm leaving before you, please excuse me". the response to that is usually "お疲れ様でした", or "you've worked hard today". when i left work on the 28th, my colleagues returned my greeting (farewell?) with "いいお年を" instead, which means "may you have a good year ahead". that's something people say at the end of a year, when they don't expect to see you until after new year. sort of like a final farewell within the year. they assumed i knew! well, it's a lesson learnt. with luck, i won't have to confirm this next year. the bright side is that i live quite close to work, although getting up at 6:45am for nothing was a tiny bit annoying. but it was not a bad day by far, and i'll elaborate on why that is later.

although i usually reserve thinking points for the latter part of a post, i want to get the 2 thoughts in my head out first. from the previous post, i mentioned that i notice senior citizens who are still working to a larger extent in japan than i did in singapore. i think the main reason is language. in japan, service staff have to use keigo (polite speech) when serving customers. there are immensely complicated rules surrounding when, to whom, and even what kind of keigo should be used (elevating others or lowering oneself). normally, the rule goes: junior people use it towards their seniors (in age or social hierarchy), a person uses it towards people not in their "inner group", which comprises family, close friends, and organization (when dealing with external parties). however, the interaction between customer and serviceperson overrides all that...meaning that when i buy things at a supermarket, the 60+ year-old cashier will have to lower her status and elevate mine above her own in the way she speaks to me. i imagine that japanese people are used to it from daily life, but it makes me a tiny bit uncomfortable. the languages which i use in singapore don't really have keigo, not to the extent that's found in japanese, anyway. the most extreme in singapore would probably be the service staff calling me "sir", or asking me a question starting with "请问" (may i please ask...) in the case of chinese. unfortunately, that's the current reality, and with the aging population problem, i doubt it'll change soon.

next point: science. well...yes, eventually, but let's back up a little for context. during JET orientation, as well as during my first few days at the board of education, there was time devoted to talking about natural disasters. in particular, there's an impending one called the nankai trough earthquake (nankai for short). it's predicted to cause catastrophic damage to places where it'll hit, and how coincidental that kochi is one of those places! as if that wasn't bad enough, earthquakes are usually followed by tsunamis, and guess who lives near the coast in kochi! my supervisor said that the nankai happens once every 80 to 100 years, and the last time it happened was 1946. at JET orientation, i was told that the official prediction was about 80% chance of it happening within the next 30 years, which is way too broad for my liking. so, i was reading the information leaflet earlier this afternoon, and it made me think: what will i do if the nankai hits while i'm in kochi? going by how old the house is, i'm pretty sure it won't stand a chance against an earthquake/tsunami combo. i'll probably lose thousands of dollars' worth of things that are in the house, as well as the house itself, for that matter. not sure how i'll find the resources to replace everything.

thankfully, the science-trained part of my brain decided to do some further reading. apparently, the nankai got some special treatment in terms of data collection and processing, and the figure of 80% chance within the next 30 years was derived using a method that experts consider unreliable. some experts even said that that figure shouldn't have been published! if it was treated like a typical earthquake, the number is more like 20% in that same timeframe. so, my 2 questions are: why use a different method, and why not make an official correction? i don't have the technical knowledge to answer the first question, although my guess is they're getting antsy about the time interval and want to fit the model. as for the second, my guess is that it's to stop people from becoming complacent. like people will treat an 80% chance of something bad happening more seriously. they'll be more on guard, and more likely to be prepared when the thing hits, as compared to when they know that the chance of something bad happening is 20%. although personally, i think being on constant guard will be exhausting eventually. but well...as the presenter said during orientation, it'll come when it comes, and we can't change that. so, we might as well go on living our lives, and be prepared for the possibility of having to deal with it. which reminds me, i should put a disaster kit together, and preferably sooner than later.

my supervisor invited me over to her place for dinner yesterday! she said that there would be alcohol, and i was welcome to stay over. for the record: she's married, has a son, and lives with her parents. now that i think about it, this is not something i'd expect from a superior in singapore. but this isn't singapore, so i took up her offer. in a lot of ways, her family reminds me of scary JC friend's. especially her dad, who even looks a bit like his singaporean counterpart! we had buri shabu (shabu shabu, but with buri, or amberjack). and there was a lot of alcohol. i got drunk, but not completely wasted. over the course of about 5 hours, we ate and talked about a wide range of topics. somehow, her dad seemed to like talking to me, even though my japanese isn't completely up to scratch, to the point where i have a standing invitation to go over for drinks and maybe a meal. won't use it too often, though...it's not nice to impose. i'm thinking every 3 weeks to a month should be plenty. there were 2 surprises that night: (1) her son, who is usually shy with strangers, warmed up to me really quickly! everyone was shocked, myself included. (2) i ended up coming out to them. it was probably a combination of the alcohol, wanting to be honest, and just getting a non-threatening vibe from them. the fact that LGBT rights was one of the topics we talked about prior really helped too. well...no regrets. i think it helps to be honest with the person that i'm most likely going to rely on the most while on JET. also, it shouldn't affect work.

we talked about the civil service in japan, and i learnt that my supervisor has been in her role for a little too long. she's been the JET supervisor at the board of education (not the official title, but an accurate description) for the past 10 or 11 years. considering that most civil servants in japan (including teachers, in schools) stay in a role for only about 3-5 years on average, she seems to be (over)due for a move. they were so surprised when i told them that in singapore, a teacher can start his/her career in a particular school, and never transfer out until retirement. apparently, the reason japan does this is to prevent dishonesty. like, if i'm in a role for years, i could embezzle company funds and not get found out until retirement or something like that. conversely, if i knew that i would be in this role for only a short time, the higher chance of being found out would serve as a deterrent. so, this actually ties in to my supervisor's role. if she's transferred, i will of course be assigned a new supervisor. and while i did tell my current supervisor that i'd like her to only transfer after i'd finished my JET term, the reality is that nobody concerned has any say in the matter. i'm just thinking that i could work well with anyone currently in the board of education. then again, someone may transfer in from another department of the town hall, or even from another prefecture. much like the nankai, my best course of action seems to be to carry on with life and react when things go down. taking a lesson from being disaster-ready, i should mentally prepare myself for the eventuality too. at least i know that even if she may not be my supervisor any more, she'll still be a friend. remember how i was saying that unlike some other JETs, no neighbours gave me freebies? well, her grandmother(!) gave me a ton of vegetables. daikon, carrots, spinach, and handmade konnyaku too! quite excited to include all that in the new year's meal that i'm planning.

also yesterday, before going over for dinner, i went to get a new ring light because the old one burnt out. ended up not getting an LED one because it was so much more expensive! anyway, this fluorescent one is said to be able to last for 20000 hours, or over 2 years of continuous use. definitely going to outlast me in this house. i also caved in and got myself a bigger electric blanket, which will be useful in the upcoming months. unfortunately, the light is still buzzing. i googled it, and the buzzing is not caused by the bulb, but rather by something called a ballast. i have to replace that to eliminate the buzzing, and since it involves rewiring, i think that's a bit beyond my pay grade. so, the plan is to live with it, and ask my supervisor to recommend an electrician if it becomes unbearable. incidentally, i got my first electricity bill today. my total consumption came up to 52kWh over 2-ish weeks, for which they charged me 1200+ yen. cheap in absolute terms, but i'm not sure how it compares to singapore and other countries. also, it'll get more expensive from next month onwards, when my internet is set up. i'm actually more afraid of getting the water bill. if i'm not wrong, the fee is about 200 yen per cubic metre. guess we'll see when it comes.

originally, i'd wanted to go to kochi city today, for a spot of shopping and to familiarize myself with the layout a little more, but i ended up staying a little too long at my supervisor's place. more importantly, i wasn't feeling up to the long drive after the drunk night, so the new plan is to turn in early tonight for sufficient rest, and go tomorrow morning. my main objective is to visit nitori, to get a futon. apparently, i've been using a matress topper as a makeshift futon for the past 3 weeks, and i've searched in every conceivable location in the house for an actual futon, without any luck. problem is, futons are priced over a wide range. i remember advice from one of my friend's friends - don't scrimp on things that go between you and the ground. it covers car tyres, shoes, and beds at least. at the same time, i don't think i need something SUPER luxurious. guess i'll have to find a compromise between luxury and cost.

-random thought of the day: Sleeping in a warm bed feels good.-

Reminder to self because it doesn't feel festive at all: i'm due for a year-end post on thursday and a new year post on friday. i'll probably hotspot and publish my backlog of posts over those 2 days. the way things are looking now, my data allowance will probably explode. but that's ok, because i have a definite date for my fibre! if everything goes according to plan, i should have it installed on 10 january, literally just a day shy of my first month anniversary in kochi! my supervisor wasn't kidding when she said it would take about a month. too bad it couldn't be done sooner, though. actually, the internet guy who came over earlier today suggested a date within january 17th to 19th. i told him that those were no-go, since my classes would have started by then. he then asked if i was ok with them coming over on weekends. honestly, i would be ok with them coming over at 3am on new year's day if it meant that i could get my internet sooner! but yes, it seems 10 january is the earliest date they have, so 10 january it is. while i'm happy to have internet, it is a double edged-sword. unlimited access to media means potentially staying up later and racking up a higher electricity bill. that's where my self-discipline comes in, i guess.

today was an unexpectedly productive day at the board of education. since my japanese is nowhere near good enough to answer the phone or help my colleagues in their liaisons with various parties, i'm more useful in providing an extra pair of hands for heavy lifting. we're scheduled to move to the new town hall building sometime next month (higher elevation, so safer in the event of a tsunami), and people have been throwing things away left and right in a huge 掃除 (cleaning up) exercise. it was ridiculous; the library had vinyl records, and there were diskettes of software for windows 95 in the office! being the newest arrival, i didn't really have many things of my own to throw out. but i did have 4 predecessors' worth of material to sift through and sort. i ended up throwing away about half of the drawer's contents, and only kept some textbooks/reference materials. earlier, in my first few days at the board of education, i did glance through the materials that my predecessors had prepared. there's an inconsistency, though. the materials which my vietnamese-american predecessor prepared about 12 years ago seems too difficult for the kids that i met in the schools. not sure if the standard of english around here dropped, or she was just aiming high. might be the english education reform too, but no point speculating. i've got kids with a certain standard of english, and no matter what i think of it, it's my job to help them improve.

my stomach has been rumbling all evening, since i drank water. not sure why; it doesn't happen to this extent in singapore. maybe it's the different diet? doesn't make sense either, since most food i've eaten in japan has also featured in my singapore diet. well, whatever it is, i trust that i'm doing something right, because i've been losing 2kg per week since arriving in kochi. of course, the question i really should be asking is, "what did i lose 2kg of?" losing 2kg of fat would be amazing, losing 2kg of muscle would be less ideal. it's more likely than not to be a mix of the two. i just hope i'm losing more fat than muscle...although i wonder if it's possible to lose fat in winter? i'm super disinclined to do physical training, because i'm pretty sure that i'll catch my death of cold. but i did see some people running in the streets, so i guess it would be possible if i really wanted to.

so annoying! the stomach rumbling has turned into a need to go to the toilet, but i'm expecting a uniqlo delivery from 7 to 9pm. knowing my luck, the delivery person will knock while i'm occupied. so, i'm trying to focus on other stuff first to pass the time. i have to admit, i was a little surprised that uniqlo would deliver to my house with no change in eligibility for free shipping, considering that my place is not in the most populous/urban location. but hey, if companies will deliver to the guy based on an offshore island (for an additional fee), i suppose i shouldn't be surprised that i get free delivery since i'm still on the mainland.

yes! the delivery came! it's more thermal wear, in case you're wondering. so far in japan, the shop at which i've spent the most money is definitely uniqlo. i know for sure that i've spent over 10000 yen there, and i would hazard a guess at the actual amount being in the neighbourhood of between 22000 to 25000 yen. that's excluding the stuff that i'd already bought in singapore, by the way. but hey, i think it's necessary. remember how i was kind of angry with myself for spending a little extra to get extra-warm heattech inner wear? i stand corrected; it was a good decision. as i mentioned in a previous post, short-sleeved heattech turned out to be the bad choice instead...hoping that something will change my mind about it later.

don't think that i have the capacity to blog about it now, but just as a prompt for a future post: i notice that there are a lot of older people still working. like, the guy who delivered my uniqlo stuff is easily in his late 40s or even somewhere in his 50s. same as with singapore, but somehow i feel it more here. might be because of the language (keigo), but i'll elaborate another time.

-random thought of the day: Investigate the gym.-

Another productive weekend! didn't do that much cleaning this week (just vacuumed the exhaust ducts in the toilet and shower), but i organized my kitchen area and got more supplies! in the process, i also explored a bit more of the city and found my new favourite shop. let's go by category, i think.

for the kitchen, i sorted out stuff that my predecessors left into categories of: what i want to use, what i'm not going to touch, and what i can throw away. of the things that i'm going to use, the one i'm most excited about is a portable butane stove/burner thing, because it means that i can have hotpot! a predecessor left a big clay pot behind, but i'm reluctant to use it because there's a long, thin crack across its body. it wouldn't be that bad, except that the same crack runs along both the inner and outer faces of the pot. so that makes me worry about its structural integrity a little more than usual. the plan here is that i'll test it a bit before committing to using it. not like i'll use it a lot anyway, since it's so big! the product specification says "meant for 3-4 people", which is 3-4 times as many people as there are in the house. so i also bought a smaller pot, which i can cook in for solo meals.

it sounds stupid, but i find shopping for housing stuff to actually be quite enjoyable. i've had to remind myself more than once that this is only temporary, and while i'm sure that i'll somehow be able to take everything that i bought with me if i really put my mind (and wallet) to it, it'll probably be more trouble than it's worth. apart from that, i also bought some cleaning supplies, clothespegs, and just general sundry items. probably won't be the last time i have to restock them, considering that i plan to stay for at least 2 years. oh, and i bought a ton of food, too! you see, next weekend is a long weekend for new year's day, and most of the shops will be closed at least on the holiday itself, if not for longer. so i thought i might as well stock up. also, today was the last day i could use a 5% discount coupon for the supermarket, so might as well buy the food and freeze it for friday. hope the leafy vegetables will be ok, though. worst case i can re-buy them on thursday.

now, about my new favourite shop. it's an electronics shop called K's denki. think like best denki + harvey norman and multiplied by 5. this was especially where i had to remind myself that my stay in this house is only temporary. if i settled permanently in japan, i might just bankrupt myself shopping there to outfit my house. it has almost everything i could have thought of, including some things that i absolutely wasn't expecting to see. i mean...they had gyro balls for sale! yes, the same type that i have in singapore for training wrist and forearm strength. it baffled me, because gyro balls aren't even electrical! but yes. apart from that, they sell a lot of home stuff, like TVs, computers, printers, magical toilet seats, treadmills, massage chairs. they also sell season-appropriate electric appliances. since it's winter now, kotatsus, electric blankets, and heaters (called "stoves" in japan, not to be confused with the cooking stove, which is called a "range") are on display. i was tempted to get a bigger electric blanket, since the one i have is probably meant for a child, or for use as a lap blanket. but it costs like 5000 yen or so. while that's not a sum i can't afford, cash is just the tiniest bit tight since payday was delayed. plus, i have rent payment and a uniqlo shipment arriving tomorrow that i have to set cash aside for. and it's always good to have some spare money in case anything crops up. the current plan is to see whether the cold in january will make me change my mind. also because it's closer to payday, and i can be a bit less restrained with my money by then, after making the 2 big payments above.

the purpose i went into K's denki in the first place was to get a lightbulb. my house foyer has a light, but it hasn't been working since i moved in. so, i went to remove the (very very dusty) housing and took a look inside. the bulb had burnt out (the filament was loose), so i thought that i might as well replace it. i got an LED bulb that the staff tells me is a suitable replacement for my burnt bulb. i'll try to fit it in the socket tomorrow, because it's dark and cold outside now. hoping he's right, because i don't want to make an extra trip for an exchange. a crazy thought came into my mind, about changing all the fluorescent bulbs/tubes in the house to LED, but that's a huge huge capital outlay. i would if it was my own house, though, because in the words of the comedian danny bhoy, "the place is so old, you can hear the electricity". while i was at the shop, i spent an inordinate amount of time hunting for a travel adapter to use with my portable speakers. i think that's the last appliance that i brought over from singapore which has a 3-pin plug (others being my laptop and multi-port charger). i went through the whole shop twice before i spotted the little travel adapter section. it was literally one little panel amongst the shelves. thankfully i didn't give up, because i was thinking there's no way an electronics store would stock gyro balls and not have travel adapters, right!? i would have been very upset if that had been the case. but all's well that ends well.

what other noteworthy things do i have to blog about? there's some progress regarding my fibre internet. a guy from the company is supposed to come over tomorrow to see if my place has the requisite infrastructure, i think. and from there, we'll set up an appointment to have it activated. he's coming over at 11:00am, which means that i have to take an hour's leave to receive him. i quite like the leave system here. we're given days of leave, but leave can be taken in hourly units. so, my 20 days of leave work out to 140 hours, because my contract states that i work 7 hours a day. i could theoretically leave 2 hours early once a week (or come in 2 hours late), and still have leave to spare. but nah, no point. the plan is to take chunks of leave over the summer, because unlike the tokyo private school JETs who get the whole summer off(!), i only get 3 days of special summer leave. beyond that, i still have to come in and deskwarm. it's pros and cons, i guess. the pros for me are that i get to sit in an air-conditioned office and basically do my own thing. biggest con is that there are only so many things i can do. well...i'm sure it'll be fine. summer is still some time away, anyway.

coming back to winter, the kids are on term break now, so i get a taste of what deskwarming is going to be like. it's only 2 weeks, though, which is like 1/6 the length of the summer break. good news for me, i get to dress casually when i don't have class. so it's t-shirts, jeans, and my NUS hoodie for the next 2 weeks...well, 8 workdays. i have a meeting with one of the english teachers the following thursday, and the primary school starts their third term the day after that. secondary schools start the week after that, ie. the week of the 11th. but the 11th itself is a holiday in japan (coming-of-age day), so my first secondary school class is on the 13th. did i get that all right? sure hope so...it wouldn't be nice to miss a day of class, especially the first day.

-random thought of the day: Have to get used to different holidays too.-

What's the traditional japanese christmas greeting?

"おはようございます", or "good morning".

if my attempt at humour didn't click, the message is that christmas isn't a big deal in japan, to the point where it's a normal workday. i had class (well, more like a summary/activity session) at the primary school today, and i was working with an english teacher who's from the UK. it must be harder for her to work during christmas, since it's a big thing in her culture. but well, that's how it is in japan. then again, she's been here for like, 30 years already, so i'm sure she's become used to it by now. i suppose that my equivalent would be having to work over CNY, although to be honest, it won't be that much of a difference. after all, i've spent days 1 and 2 of CNY in the lab before. partly because i really had experiments to run, and partly to get out of the whole visiting people i only see once a year thing.

final fantasy had a collaboration campaign with lawson's recently - buy certain stuff to accrue a certain number of stamps, and trade the stamps for an in-game mount. i wasn't going to do it initially, but then i thought i might as well take advantage of being in japan. so i got the mount. in the process, i bought like 11 chocolate waffles, 3 boxes of chocolate, and 1 container of what i think is bubblegum. the chocolate was nice; i haven't tried the waffles or gum yet. the timing was good, actually. i bought all that stuff yesterday, and decided to give out the chocolate waffles to the office today as a christmas present. one of my rare brainwaves. the big plus here for me was that the cute guy who's based in the main headquarters came by my office to do work, so i got to give him a waffle too. turns out he's a final fantasy fan! but he likes FF7, and doesn't play FF14. i told the singapore JETs about him being there, and one of them asked if it was serendipity. being a scientist, i know that conclusions drawn based on a single data point are unreliable. so i'll see how valentine's day goes.

by the way, valentine's day in japan is quite different from other places. if memory serves, only girls give chocolate to guys on valentine's day. then they have this thing called "white day" a month later, where guys return the gesture. whoops, got sidetracked there a little. i guess the plan is to wait and see. valentine's day might also be a good chance for me to ask how people find partners in this remote area, and the general view on LGBT people. but for that guy in particular...i mean, yes, he's cute, but there's a 10-year age gap, not to mention the language barrier, and most importantly - he may not be into guys. nevertheless, i think it's no harm to casually flirt a little...as long as he doesn't feel uncomfortable.

ah, speaking of cute guys, i'm slowly coming up with more and more evidence for a hypothesis that i have. it goes: people generally look better with masks on. masks that cover the lower half of their face, that is. sometimes, the difference isn't that great, like someone goes from a 9 to a 7 or 8 after taking their mask off (cute guy belongs in this category, i think, though i haven't yet got a good look at him mask-less). in other cases though...10 can go to 6. someone i met has the most beautiful eyes, and his hairstyle was really good too; suited him very well. but when he took off his mask to drink water, let's just say i was more than a little disappointed. this is just me being shallow, by the way. i should probably declare that peoples' looks don't affect how i work with them. if they're nice, i'll be at least equally nice, if not more so. i really wonder if anyone's rating/number will go up after the mask is removed though...

side note on masks - my ears are beginning to hurt from wearing them! i feel it on my left ear especially. my aunt gave me a plastic thing to hook onto both mask straps and thus allow me to have a mask on while bypassing my ears, but i have no idea where it is! what's worse, i don't remember packing it, so i probably misplaced it somewhere. i should attempt to mcguyver something that will work similarly. i got it! string, tied together. or, i might just try my luck and see if it's being sold anywhere near me.

today is also my second week anniversary in kochi. at this point, i think i have a pretty good idea of what's expected of me, and how things work around here. like i mentioned in a post  that i may or may not have published (uncertain at the point of writing this post), this is not the JET experience that i envisioned. for the record, i'm not unhappy. just that this japan that i'm actually living in is different from the japan i knew as a tourist. it's even different from the japan i knew through anime and manga, since most of them are set in city/urban-ish locales. that's not necessarily bad, but as i've said many times before, it will take getting used to. considering how different it is, i think wanting/expecting myself to get used to it in 2 weeks is a little harsh/demanding. should be kinder to myself and allow for more time to settle in. a part of me is a little envious of some of the other JETs (several of whom have received free goodies from their neighbours, and one of them apparently is being very well taken care of by everyone in the city hall, even the mayor!). but as we all know, envy/jealousy isn't good. so, i remind myself that i'm happy for them, and that my placement is by no means awful. help has been freely available when i needed it, and that's just about all i can reasonably ask for.

with that, i'll just say merry christmas. it'll probably be over by the time you read this, but it's the thought that counts. may your holidays be peaceful and unexciting; there's been enough excitement this year, i think.

-random thought of the day: Dating/finding a partner is not a priority at this time!-

Good decision to go to the party thing! free food, for one (it's a potluck, so i'll have to contribute next time). and i got to meet the other JETs who are living and teaching in the nearby towns and cities. there's a couple (whose house the event was in), another couple (one ALT and one CIR), two ladies who are living together, and one other guy. like with my orientation, it was nice to be able to speak in english, and to be understood well by others while doing so. the food was pretty good too; my favourite would probably be the quiche-like thing, followed by the garlic bread. nothing tasted bad, just that i liked those two the best. i'll have to figure out what i can cook and transport. curry chicken seems like the go-to dish to prepare, but i only have that one pack of pre-made curry paste. we also played a game called "tokaido" i think. or "tokiden"? it's a board game about people travelling from kyoto to tokyo. interesting, and i wouldn't mind playing it again. i also asked them my lingering question - what do people do for entertainment around here? they told me about some interesting activities, like swimming classes, taiko (big drum) classes, and even suggested a gym nearby. well i say "nearby", but it's like half an hour's drive away? not too different from my place in singapore to virgin active, actually.

on the way back, i stopped at a sightseeing spot near my place. the name translates to "twin islands", though i forget the actual japanese name at the moment. great sunset view, and i'm sure the sunrise would be equally amazing. unfortunately, it was cold and getting dark soon, so i didn't stay long. might plan a midday trip there next week; the temperature should be more bearable with the sun out in full force. captain obvious statement incoming, but the cold is so much more bearable when standing in the sun. the moment there's some cloud cover or wind, though...you feel it in your bones again.

so far, i've got some semblance of a routine going. work on the weekdays, chores on weekend mornings, then exploration on weekend afternoons. i'm figuring out whether it might be feasible to do some light vacuuming on the weekdays, but before work is too early, and i don't feel like doing anything after the sun sets. i also need to start cooking soon. i'm spending close to (if not more than) a thousand yen on food every day, and this is after i get the discounted stuff in the evenings! somehow, i'm losing weight. my predecessor left a weighing scale, and i thought i'd hop on just for fun. apparently i lost about 2kg since my last measurement? that was months ago in singapore, though, so the earth's gravity might be different and all that. but hey, i'll take it as a win.

what wasn't a win was that i had an unpleasant confrontation with a neighbour. so i park the car on a common plot of land in front of my house, as most residents do. there are no lots labelled or anything, just a "park wherever there's space" kind of arrangement. today, i parked in an available space and went indoors. a while later, the old man from the house across the road knocked on my door. apparently, i had parked in what he thinks is his family's lot or something. that wasn't the issue in itself. it was the way he told me about it. what i understood from his semi-rant was "you're creating a problem by parking there. my son's BMW can't enter!". my first thought was 'so, asshole/entitled BMW drivers exist throughout the world, even in japan!' i saw no need for him to bring up the make of his son's car in the conversation. for that matter, there was no need (in my opinion) to even have that conversation in the first place! his son still found a place to park, albeit further from the house, so there isn't actually an issue, is there?

well, being the new resident, and a foreigner to boot, i just apologized and moved my car. but i will bring this up to my supervisor, because it struck a nerve with me. if this happened in singapore, i'd just ask "BMW big deal meh?" of course, i'd use another word instead of "deal". but this is japan. i'm hoping that it's just a cultural difference. he may have mentioned BMW because he wanted me to know the car's size, and that it would be difficult to park elsewhere other than that spot; instead of him being an arrogant bugger, trying to flaunt his son's car, and believing that it deserves special treatment by virtue of it being more expensive. the latter is how i interpret it as a sigaporean, but we'll see what my supervisor says. i was telling the singapore JETs about this on discord, and i jokingly said that it might be because i didn't go over to introduce myself properly, or give him any kaya. thinking about it more seriously, that might have contributed to it too. i'm sure he would have been nicer if proper introductions were made. anyway...it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. i'll just stay out of his way and hope that he doesn't try to find more fault with me. more than that, i'm hoping that this doesn't lead to anything else, like him doing something malicious. some people can be ridiculously petty.

that was my second weekend (first proper weekend with a car) in kochi. pretty good, apart from the old man. i could see myself doing this 51 more times to make it a full year, or even 103 times for 2 years. but i think that unlike NS and ORD, this shouldn't be a countdown or even a count-up. it should be based on whether i'm still learning, enjoying my time here, and whether i feel i'm making a difference in the kids' lives. definitely yes for the first two, but it's a bit too early to say for the last one since i haven't even met all my kids yet. hopefully the in-class experience will be more like those sample videos and less like the horror stories that i've read (being a human tape recorder, novelty figure, doing endless deskwarming) on reddit.

-random thought of the day: Should try driving into Kochi city soon.-

Since it's the weekend, and since i have a car now, i took full advantage of those 2 things. before that though, i spent the morning doing laundry. finally figured the washing machine out. i attempted to mess with the settings last week, but i did that without any clothes in the drum, which caused the machine to not function as intended. the machine is smarter than i give it credit for; although it looks like something from 15 years ago (ok, it probably is), and there are no fancy LED displays or complicated washing programs, it was still able to detect when i'd opened the lid during a spin cycle, and stop the drum. there's a time-delay feature which i'm keen to try. it allows you to delay the wash cycle by 9 or 12 hours, presumably meaning that you can load the laundry in at night, go to sleep, and have the wash cycle finish just as you get up so you can hang the clothes up immediately. i'd wanted to mess with that tonight, but i don't have enough laundry to warrant a second run.

after that and a spot of cleaning, i went out to top up petrol. my first visit to a japanese petrol station was not the smoothest, but i achieved the objective of topping up the tank in the end. thanks to the helpful attendant too, who gave me a point card and who pointed out to me that the needle on my fuel gauge was rising slowly to the "full" position after i turned the engine on. i initially saw it hovering at 1/4 tank, and thought that i didn't top up enough. so i topped up until there was a bit of backflow out of the fuel port (kids, don't try this at home), and even then, it only showed half full. that's why i got worried and summoned the attendant. in my defense though, the civic had a digital fuel gauge. and even with analogue gauges in singapore, my memory is that the needle would jump to its final position straight away, instead of inching up the scale.

now that i had a full tank, i drove to suki-ya in the nearby city for lunch. it's a beef bowl place - think yoshinoya, but supposedly better. i don't have a basis for comparison, since i can't remember my last yoshinoya meal. but for what it's worth, suki-ya is good. word is that they're opening in singapore too, although i wonder how they'll resolve the naming issue (the suki-ya name is already in use, by a sukiyaki place in singapore). this feels like something that i should be interested in, since it's kind of in the IP realm. i guess i'll read up on it later. note to self, try double meat and raw egg next time.

the suki-ya was conveniently located in the same parking lot as a big marunaka supermarket. there's a smaller branch near my workplace, but as you might imagine, smaller branch means less variety. the big branch was amazing! like, they literally sell live lobsters. didn't see any whole salmon though, which was a pity. perhaps it's a sign for me to try the local fish. i'm slowly by slowly setting up the kitchen...my predecessor didn't cook, so it's bare as far as food supplies and perishables go. considering buying a new knife, or maybe just a stone to sharpen the old ones. still need a chopping board, as well as kitchen essentials like salt, pepper, oil/butter, the like. my shopping list just gets longer and longer...

my main objective for going out today was actually to get a pair of indoor shoes. you see, japanese schools are odd in that sense - students and teachers change into their indoor shoes at the foyer before entering the main school building. might be to make cleaning easier by not tracking in dirt from outside or something. i not-smartly thought that i would use my black formal shoes for that, but then i realized that it wouldn't be worthwhile to subject them to wear and tear here (from repeated putting on and taking off), especially since nobody has complained about me wearing my lab shoes so far. in fact, bringing the formal shoes to japan was a mistake. should have left them in singapore, for life after JET. but anyway, long story short is that i had to get another pair of shoes.

let me tell you, shoe shopping in japan is not easy. i'm a size 10.5 to 11. in singapore, i think my feet are slightly on the larger side. here, i might as well be bigfoot! also, the sizing system is different - japan uses cm, which i have to admit, is better than some arbitrary number. good thing that my lab shoes were marked with cm measurements too - 28.5cm. the biggest you'll see in a typical japanese shop is 27cm. thankfully, i found a shop that had 28cm-sized shoes. the half a centimetre probably won't make much of a difference...just perhaps a more snug fit. plus, shoes are bound to expand some over time. what i like about the shoes that i bought though, is that they're zip-fastened. like, there's just a zipper where the laces would normally be. makes it extremely convenient to put on and take off. pretty excited to try them out on monday, actually! best part? they cost about 2100 yen, or less than SGD 30.

pretty satisfied with what i managed to do today! there's a little get-together that some of the JETs in the nearby city are organizing, and they invited me. thought i'd go for a couple of hours to show face and just get acquainted with people. i must admit, i'm starting to miss having conversations in english, or even hearing english, for that matter. the orientation that i went to on thursday was conducted by a british guy, and it felt nice to be able to communicate without having to second-guess myself every few sentences. But english conversation (meaningful ones outside of teaching, that is) are going to be few and far between. have to get used to that.

-random thought of the day: Never thought shoe shopping would excite me!-

Happy one week anniversary to me in my placement! just this time last week, i was sitting down to a welcome reception and going to buy groceries with my supervisor and the superintendent. i'd say that i kind of have a general daily routine already - wake up, get changed, go to work, buy/eat lunch, knock off, buy dinner, go home, eat dinner, shower, free time, sleep, repeat. sounds quite no life, and that's because it is. but in my defense, it's too damned cold to do anything! night temperatures get as low as 0 to 1 degree, which is an order of magnitude lower than what i'm accustomed to. i actually regret buying short-sleeved heattech shirts. my impression was that i could get by with them, and i've never been more wrong in my life. what's more, i hear it's going to get colder in january, so i might do another round of uniqlo shopping, focusing on long-sleeved attire, as well as lower-body thermal wear. i can tolerate the cold outside well enough if i'm wearing jeans, but the wind goes right through my work pants, which i have to wear for classes. heck, i might even splurge a little and go for the extra-warm series. so, what do i do with the short-sleeved heattech shirts that i have already? probably use them in milder weather, like transitioning in and out of winter. or use them as workout clothes? still feels like a waste, though. what's worse, i don't think that uniqlo japan will refund my purchase, because they might be classified as inner wear. ah well. worst case i'll pass them on to someone who can use them (maybe my successor?). in the meantime, i'll use them for layering on days that i don't have class, because a more casual dress code is allowed at the board of education as compared to in schools.

so, how did i celebrate one week in kochi? well, a colleague asked me to dress up as santa claus to bring some christmas cheer to a couple of preschools. i was mortified at the thought, but then i remembered that this is japan, and nobody knows anything about me, or what i normally would/wouldn't do. so i went along. it was quite scary, considering i generally don't like kids under the age of 13. but i managed somehow. my supervisor's son was in one of the preschool classes, and she took the day off to bring him to the thing. so that might have earned me some brownie points as an unintended consequence. i think that the reason japanese kids are more physical is that they do it from a young age, and nobody tells them to stop. i wonder if the attractive guy will be more open to physical affection too...but putting that thought aside, it was definitely a memorable first week anniversary! i also celebrated by running myself a nice hot bath (i started it at maximum temperature and soaked until the water cooled), and i'll be logging in to final fantasy tomorrow to do the christmas event. this year's event has "farmable" items, ie. items that i want multiple of, so i'll have to repeat the quest. going by past years' events, it might be a rhythm game. hope it doesn't eat too much data.

don't think i mentioned it yet, but the car came through already! i got the keys yesterday. my mistake - it's not a nissan, but a daihatsu. i can very confidently say that the person i bought it from sold it to me at a decent loss. he actually quoted a price range of between 50000 to 100000 yen, which is about SGD 650 to 1300. i initially offered 75000 yen, which was right in the middle of his range. perhaps he considered that i was a foreigner and new to the town, and counter-offered me 50000 yen. believe me, i'm more than happy about that. for that price, i get a car, stereo system with inbuilt GPS navigation and 3.5mm auxillary connection, dash cam, and i think the tyres were just changed? i wish the stereo was bluetooth-compatible, but you know the thing about gift horses. all in all, it's a good deal. i should remind myself that it's not very powerful, so i have to watch how hard i push it.

yesterday, i had to drive to and from kochi city (an hour each way) for JET orientation. it was my first solo long drive in japan, and it was terrifying. unlike singapore expressways, which have 3 lanes at the minimum, the expressway that serves my town is a one-lane road with overtaking zones spaced along its length. so if you're stuck behind a slow/unconfident driver, you can't overtake as and when you like, but have to wait till you reach an overtaking zone to do so. i feel bad for the people who were stuck behind me for several kilometres! thankfully there weren't that many; about 2 or 3 each way. but hey - the official speed limit is 70km/h, and i was doing between 70 to 90, which i thought was already pretty risky! but well, i am probably the newest driver here as far as japan roads go, so it'll take a while for me to get used to the roads. oh, and for perspective, that was in a toyota prius (it was considered a work trip, and i was thus allowed to use a company car). my personal car has about half the engine capacity, hence the added worry about not being fast enough.

going back to the thing about being able to use a company car for work trips, i should mention that only going to work (ie. from my house to the board of education) and coming back from work (the reverse trip) are considered personal trips. as long as i'm going to a school to teach or somewhere on official business, it's considered a work trip, and i can book a company car. i must say that for such a rural area, they're pretty well-equipped! 4 priuses, a couple of hi-jets, and a few other miscellaneous vehicles. it's going to save me a ton of money! which reminds me, i need to do a budget spreadsheet.

minor annoyance - the laptop won't read an SD card that i brought from singapore. i tried using both the inbuilt card reader, as well as a card reader that connected by USB. no luck on both fronts. i even tested both methods with a second SD card, but that didn't work either. i think there's some incompatibility somewhere, but i can't really be bothered to figure it out now. i know that the USB port works, because it recognizes my phone. also, it's unlikely for 2 card readers and 2 cards to all fail, or fail in a permutation that results in no positives. my last thought is that the card reader only works when the laptop is connected to the charger - nope, that's not it. just tried. unless i'm supposed to open some special program? oh well. it's not going to kill me, just that it's mildly annoying. maybe i'll mess about with uninstalling and reinstalling drivers once my fibre internet gets set up. as an absolute last resort, i can put the SD card into my phone and transfer files over to the computer, but i don't want to do that because it'll mean that i have to take out a SIM card. too troublesome. well, it's not like i need those files anytime soon, anyway.

-random thought of the day: Learning to drive again.-

It snowed today! just the barest few flakes, but it still counts! my supervisor said that this was the coldest day of the year so far. i don't doubt her at all. i'm still hamstrung due to the lack of a car (that got pushed to next monday because paperwork), but i'm grateful that the not-bad looking guy in the office offered to send me home. or maybe he got asked by my supervisor to lend a hand, i don't know. either way, he saved me a walk in the snow. turns out he's 25 years old! again, i wonder why people would choose to stay in such a rural place. it seems like somewhere to retire to, not somewhere to spend your whole life in. i guess that's a conversation topic better saved for when i become more integrated in the office.

by now, i've been to all my schools, and met with all the teachers with whom i'll be co-teaching. most of them are ladies (bummer), but there was a pretty attractive male teacher too. reality/perspective check: LGBT people are the minority in the world. it's highly unlikely that the one male teacher i'm interested in turns out to be gay too. and speaking of assuming people are LGBT, it kind of leads on to a phenomenon i noticed this morning. so, i was in class for a quick introduction and for the students to ask me questions. after class, i noticed that the guys were quite physically affectionate with each other...like sitting on each other's laps. and when we moved outside for a fire drill, a few of them were hugging the person in front of them (boys and girls line up separately, so it's not like a guy hugs a girl or anything). previous JETs have said that it's not romantic interest/physical attraction between the boys, more like an expression of bonding and friendship. i'm not against it, by any means. in fact, i wish i had the opportunity to experience that as a teenager. but that wouldn't fly in singapore schools. especially cat high, which i've been told is one of the more homophobic schools around. interestingly, the girls seemed much less touch-y with each other. in contrast to singapore, where the genders are reversed - girls are the ones who hold hands and hug each other.

as for class, they really prepared for me! i wasn't expecting to enter the classroom to applause. today was more of an icebreaker thing, and so the kids asked me questions. the most unique question was "what is your favourite plant?" cue me panicking and defaulting to orchids. the question that i found most memorable was "do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend?" i don't know if that kid was just reading off the script or if the inclusiveness was planned. either way, i answered "no boyfriend or girlfriend", whch is true. the hardest question to answer was "what is the meaning of life?", to which i answered "the meaning of life is to give your life meaning". it sounds awesome in english, but i'm very sure the impact of that answer got lost in translation, and even more got lost due to the students' grasp of english. oh well.

today's preview actually got me worried for future classes. i learned that for english at least, students mainly do speaking and listening in primary school, and only start reading and writing in the equivalent of sec 1. they are literally 6-8 years behind in terms of the former 2, and 13 years behind in the latter 2. i feel quite indignant that the NUS japanese department wanted us to become proficient in all 4 aspects in one semester! then again (1) university students have a greater capability to learn, and (2) it turned out for the better in my case. good thing the english syllabus is changing from next year, to start reading and writing at primary 5 and 6. it also explains why japanese students in general have trouble with english. so i guess that i have to take the english standard of a singaporean kid of equivalent age, and divide it by 3 or 4. it'll need some getting used to on my end, but i'm sure it'll work out. now that i think about it, the greatest disadvantage that japanese kids have is that they don't have the opportunity to learn via constant practice through usage, and passive absorption. because i'm sure that they only speak japanese at home/they only speak english when forced to. it's the same for all people learning foreign languages, i guess. maybe that might be something that i can use to improve their language acquisition.

it occurred to me that people in this town know quite little about me. i could probably use the chance to reinvent myself, or do something that the "me" that my friends in singapore know wouldn't normally do. like, i could be crazy and goofy in class...well, crazier and goofier. or i could go to the city every weekend and try to hook up with people. just something to think about. but i'll have to get a car first, and settle into life here a bit more before i feel ready to venture out. 

one other thing that i still don't know is what people do for entertainment around here. there are no nightspots, and the town is basically dead by 8pm. that's also due to COVID guidelines, so maybe i'm not being very fair. pre-COVID, there would be drinking parties and other social gatherings. even then, how much can one drink per week?? maybe that's why people in kochi drink the most alcohol per capita in japan, and they have an odd pride about it. i'm just thinking that it seems like a very dull life...work from 8am to say 5pm, and have nothing interesting to do until bedtime. that's just my point of view as a foreigner looking in, though. maybe they're family people, or they go online a lot? i haven't even mentioned the people living in the mountains yet, as they're even further away from the town! like with how best to teach english, i'll have plenty of time to figure it out.

-random thought of the day: Come on, car...hurry up!-

Feels quite surreal. this time last week, i was still in the hotel, complaining about the quarantine food. right now, i'm in my new (old, but new to me) house, electric blanket on my lap, and typing this post in notepad because i have 3gb of data to last me a month. for the record, i don't know when i'll post this, but i'll adjust the date/time to reflect when posts were written.

i landed in kochi on friday, which means that today is my 4th day here. the initial culture shock is wearing off, though i must admit that i'm still not completely used to the quiet and darkness at night. don't know if i'll ever get completely used to it, having grown up in singapore, but i have quite a while to try. call me childish, but i'm really grateful that i brought my stuffed cat (henceforth known as mr cat) along. he makes it less lonely. wish i could have brought the rest of his friends too, but luggage space restrictions made that unfeasible.

on the topic of loneliness, it's starting to sink in that i'm in a foreign country all by myself. the singaporeans with whom i've been quarantined have all gone to their respective placements, and the nearest one to me is what, 2-3 prefectures away? that distance translates to a drive of about 4 hours-ish, so regular visits are out of the question. i kind of envy the 4 who got tokyo placements, because they're an hour away from each other at most. heck, i think some of them might even be teaching in the same school! the envy ends there, though. rent and COVID cases are high, unlike over here. that's something i have to be thankful for.

what should i talk about next? maybe let's talk about kochi. kochi is one of 47 prefectures in japan, and the prefectural capital is kochi city. it's called kochi "city", just like singapore is a "city". but the name is where the similarity ends. kochi city is probably what singapore was like in the 60's or 70's...very few (basically no) high-rise buildings, roads with one lane in either direction. for perspective, let me reiterate - that's the prefectural capital. my town is about an hour's drive from the city, so you can imagine how much more ulu it is. i think finding a building that's three storeys and above is just about impossible. oh wait, there is one - the town hall. other than that, i think two storey buildings are the tallest i've seen in this town.

thankfully for me, the people have been incredibly nice and kind. my supervisor, with whom i've been in contact since before flying, is extremely experienced. she's taken care of at least the last 4 JETs here, and their combined terms come up to 11 years! so i'm quite confident that i'm in good hands. the superintendent of the board of education (i think that's his title, basically he's my big boss) used to teach chemistry, so we managed to bond over that. it's a sign to me that this posting is fated. he's pretty nice too, and apparently he likes to fish. it's something that i've been interested to learn since young, but never had the opportunity.

apart from them, the rest of the staff at the board of education are nice too. there's a guy who i think is around my age, plus minus five years. not bad looking either! but dating within the workplace probably wouldn't go down well. not to mention i don't know the general attitude towards LGBT people...although i seem to remember that kochi city had a "rainbow city" campaign. ah well. anyway it's not like i'm here to find a partner. work and the japan experience comes first. if a partner is part of the package, great. if not, i wouldn't call it a loss either. among all the people i've met so far, the one person i was most apprehensive about meeting was the town mayor. partially because of his position, but mostly because a previous JET didn't quite like him. my opinion of him so far is neutral - but it's not like we'll interact very much anyway.

let's quickly recap what i've done since arriving in kochi. i got here on friday afternoon, and was met with a 4-person welcoming contingent at the airport. in contrast, the JET who got posted to an island had the entire island waiting for him at the ferry terminal. i'm not jealous, but i was quite impressed when i heard about it. the drive back to the town took an hour, during which time i made pleasant conversation with my supervisor and the superintendent. what exactly did we do on day 1? a quick house tour, resident registration, open a bank account, meet the mayor and my future colleagues, small welcome dinner (me, supervisor, superintendent), stop at the grocery store for essentials. feels like that shouldn't have taken half a day, but well. oh! we looked at 2 cars too, but i'll elaborate later.

good thing that i arrived on a friday, as it allowed me to take a breather over the weekend. my supervisor was so nice; she took me to kochi city on saturday to get a phone plan, and we had lunch in the meantime while waiting. my first "normal" (ie. non-quarantine and non-celebratory) meal in japan was conveyor belt sushi. again, not complaining. two people ate for about 3000+ yen? i paid with a 5000 yen bill and got 1000+ yen in change. my supervisor then brought me to nitori, which is a home appliances store. "if your house needs it, they have it" kind of place. i'm still slowly accumulating essentials that i'll need, but it's like you don't realize you need something until you actually need it - case in point, a bath towel on my first night here. i'm grateful that my predecessor left me a decent stock of items...but i'll talk more about him later.

sunday was spent walking into town. i know i previously said that the town was ulu, but i live in a small suburb (really just a collection of houses) 1.6km away from my workplace. it takes me like 15-20 minutes to walk into town. i don't mind it, because the weather is nice and cool/cold now, but i wouldn't want to walk that distance while lugging groceries around and/or during summer. i heard the temperature is similar to or even higher than singapore! the purpose i went into town was to familiarize myself with the walking route to the board of education, as well as to get some food and sundry materials. no food yet, because no car. it was pretty productive, except that i forgot to get wet wipes. no big deal, i can go during lunch or after work.

about my predecessor(s)...i actually managed to trace 3 out of the 4 JETs that were here most recently before me. in order from least to most recent, they were: a vietnamese-american lady, a caucasian american lady, a caucasian american guy (i think), and finally a korean-american guy. i missed out finding the caucasian guy, but then again, he only stayed a year. it seems that he was a last-minute replacement, or an alternate that got upgraded, or something like that. my supervisor mentioned it, but i didn't fully understand her. she described him as "lazy", so i'm sure that his reluctance to be here showed in his work. i find it sad, though. JET is supposed to be this once-in-a-lifetime awesome experience, and then you hear stories of people who didn't get their expected posting, and just switch off. it's not fair of me to ascribe blame, since i don't know the full circumstances. but i just feel that he wasted his chance. my direct predecessor, the korean-american guy, seems to have left a far better impression. i didn't get to meet him in person, but he left me a 52-slide presentation about life here. that really came in handy to get me mentally prepped, and it will continue to be handy once i can get a car and explore the area. as i have to write a self-introduction for the town newsletter, my supervisor showed me the one that my predecessor wrote when starting work here 3 years ago. his japanese is amazing! what's more, he's only 25 years old (22 when he started). there is literally a ten-year gap between the ages at which we started JET. i don't know how i feel about that. side note, he's also pretty good-looking. although forgive me for saying this, he looks like a playboy in the town newsletter picture. true or not, i don't know...although i am disinclined to believe that he remained celibate throughout his time here. but that's encroaching on gossip territory. coming back to a more proper topic, he kept the house in pretty good contition! i mean, there's dust in places where people don't normally look, but the lights work, the toilet flushes, and the water heater gives me hot water when i need it. can't ask for much more, can i?

now, about the house. it's a fairly traditional house, with tatami mat roooms and a wooden floor living room/kitchen hybrid. it's quite disorienting in that as you drive up to the house from the main road, you see the back first. then, you have to walk up a path from the back to the front of the house to get to the main door. but because the back of the house faces east and the sea, there's a great view from there, especially during sunrise. the back of the house has big sliding wooden doors, whereas the front does not, so this orientation of the house actually is for the better. i'd call the house a 1.5 storey house. there's the standard first floor, but there's also a trapdoor in the ceiling that leads to a little loft area. it's a little too small/cramped for me, so i doubt that i'll use it very much, if at all. but it's quite cool to know that such a feature exists. it's really charming; the tatami mats are well-maintained, as is the wooden floor. as mentioned earlier, my predecessor took decent care of it, and even left behind things that i'd need but didn't think of getting. dish soap, for one. it's too bad we never got to meet for a proper hand/takeover. i'd have loved to talk to him in person, even if it was just for a dinner or something. then again, most of this year's incoming JETs didn't get to meet their predecessors either. damned COVID. i wonder if it would be feasible to have people staying over with me, though. the two bedrooms are only separated by a wooden door that's covered with paper. granted that the paper is thick, but i'm not sure how much privacy it offers, especially in terms of sound transmission.

while it's been mostly great so far, there are 2 things that didn't go very according to plan. first is internet. i was informed today that getting fibre internet up and running takes a month. did my predecessor survive on mobile data or portable wi-fi!!?? makes me think that i should have just gone with a portable wi-fi plan, but i remember it being tremendously expensive, and having a data limit, too. actually, i was wrong on both counts. it's a little bit cheaper and doesn't have a limit. if you exceed the allowance, the speed gets throttled. that seems to be the trend here. but it's much slower than fibre. now that i'm thinking of it, maybe portable internet is the way to go? perhaps it's for the better that they take a month to process it. gives me a bit more time to think.

i was fortunate enough to be offered a choice between 2 cars - one is a jeep-like thing from mitsubishi, and the other is a boxy car from nissan. i think that the mitsubishi would have been very fun to drive, but it needed a lot of repairs and the maths just didn't work out. in addition, it's manual transmission. i haven't touched a manual car since passing my driving test all those years ago. i did test drive it, and stalled a couple of times. given enough time though, i'm sure that i could have gotten used to it. but still, not worth it. the second car belongs to a member of the board of education (aka. one of my colleagues), and it's in much better condition. it's also the second reason why i say this placement was fated. its licence plate contains only the digits 2, 3, and 6...overlapping with my civic! the issue now is that the owner didn't give a definite takeover date. so that's annoying, because i'm basically crippled, mobility-wise, without a car to drive.

you know, it's odd. these 2 issues were looming large in my head as i was walking home. but now that i've blogged about them, they seem much more manageable/tolerable. guess that venting helps. also, i guess it's the 80-20 rule at work again. 80% of the unhappiness is caused by 20% of the problems. for the record, i should state that i'm not upset...ok, no. that's a lie. i am upset, but it's more like "oh, bummer" as opposed to "screw this i'm leaving japan". it's nothing i can't take in my stride.

considering how ulu this place is, i'm actually surprised that there are civil servants working here. it made me wonder, actually, why people would choose to live/work here. what do they do for entertainment after leaving the office? it seems like a waste, to have young people out here in such a rural place. while i feel that they can use their youth in better ways, maybe some of them want to live here for whatever reason...like having grown up here, or liking the peace and quiet. although i'm still not sure what the board of education does...maybe i should ask tomorrow.

-random thought of the day: Be positive!-

Just three more days until i can get out of quarantine hell. ok, that was a little harsh. it isn't hell by any means, although getting fried food every day does get old real fast...especially when the menus are recycled. makes me think that the hotel (and perhaps japanese society at large) places a lot of emphasis on the first impression, and less on the subsequent interactions. perhaps making an amazing first impression will generate enough goodwill to have people overlook subsequent mess-ups. but yes, 3 more days until quarantine is over, and the japan adventure can properly begin. still have more orientation activities for each day, so i'll be somewhat occupied.

going through the orientation activities makes me think that a few of the activities that i had planned aren't going to fly. for instance, one key thing i wanted to do was to have students write to me every week, like a letter or journal entry. but now knowing the standard of stuff that they learn, i'm doubting that the writing thing will work. to give some perspective, the grammar taught in secondary school is what we learn in lower primary? the difference is that secondary school students have more complex thoughts and ideas than lower primary kids, so the main difficulty is unlocking what they want to say, rather than helping them think of what to say. well, as i think i've said before, i think it's better to go in with zero expectations, despite my predecessor telling me that the kids were great at english. definitions of "great" can differ too, after all.

my main worry now is (re-)packing. due to certain limitations from the shipping company and the domestic flight, i find myself having to swap the contents of my suitcases. it's not a big issue, just troublesome. hopefully i can come in under the weight limit for both pieces. then again, after some measuring, it appears that i may not need to swap stuff after all! so i think i'll stick to the plan of sending my big luggage, and checking my small luggage in on the domestic flight. the other option is to buy a small box from the hotel and ship an additional package.

all in all, i don't foresee a problem getting these things done. it's what happens after i arrive in kochi that worries me. my supervisor tells me that we have to do 3 things in the first afternoon - register my new residential address, meet the town mayor(!), and go to my new house. it seems like i'll be without internet for a bit, because they can't hook the fibre internet up until i register my address or something. and i don't have a phone line here yet. that means i'd better do most of the in-game weekly stuff before i fly, while i can still use the hotel internet.

-random thought of the day: Hurry up and let me fly!-

Quarantine has been quite monotonous/routine, which is why i haven't really been blogging. there's nothing much to say! every day basically consists of waking up, getting breakfast, doing some orientation activities, taking temperature, getting lunch, more orientation activities, getting dinner, then having free and easy time before sleeping and repeating the cycle the next day. although it's not the most efficient use of time, it's allowed me to slowly get used to the one-hour time difference (japan is faster) and the weather (winter is approaching, which means earlier nightfall, lower temperatures, and drier air). briefly, the quarantine experience has been good. comfortable room, nice food (could use more vegetables), and access to a convenience store. i couldn't ask for much more, except maybe to use the hotel gym. then again. it's quarantine.

since i'm going to be here for an extended period, i figure that there's no point to recount things in the way i do for a typical holiday post. and as for whether or not to move to a new blog, i'll be sticking to this one for now. less hassle and smoother continuity, i guess. with that, i think i'll use this post to blog about some things that i've noticed/thought about in the slightly more than a week that i've been here.

orientation activities include both learning about teaching in japanese schools, and learning the japanese language. the former didn't surprise me that much, because it's not that dissimilar to singaporean schools...except for school lunches and school cleaning. but i've been aware of those things long before JET, so that's something that i can deal with in my head. the thing that worries me here is the standard of english in the schools that i'll be teaching in, and the way in which english is taught. the video resources i've watched so far show that primary school kids only know whatever english that is taught to them in schools (not surprising), and that the japanese teachers of english themselves still pronounce english words in a very typically japanese way. it's not the best model for students, i think. but well, i guess that's one reason they have native english speakers going over every year. in my opinion, part of the problem has to do with the way english is taught. there's a lot of "repeat after me" chorus recitation, and students will naturally pick up the teacher's pronunciation habits/patterns, which may or may not be good. i hate chorus recitation, by the way. i've found it ineffective in my own language learning process, but maybe that just applies to me.

the other part of orientation activities is learning japanese. based on my previous japanese language experience, i opted for the advanced (highest) course. it was a good decision, but it also made me realize that my japanese language knowledge is kind of imbalanced. like, i feel extremely confident in certain aspects that were taught, and out of my depth in others. the textbooks that NUS uses allows me to get my message across just fine, but it's very stiff. there wasn't much focus on terms and contractions used in casual conversation. and don't even get me started on the onomatopoeia! my vocabulary is super limited too...like, i know words that approximate what i want to say, and i'm sure that the other party will understand me well enough. but i don't feel good about just being in the ballpark. and it might also be that i forgot a lot of the things that were taught in NUS. after all, it's been 6 years! well, i figure that regular interaction with native speakers will help me in all aspects of language acquisition.

COVID is getting worse in japan. the main centres are now tokyo, osaka, and hokkaido. thankfully, i'm quarantined near narita airport, which is not in tokyo, but in the neighbouring chiba prefecture. i'll have to go to haneda airport (which is in tokyo) in a few days though, for the domestic flight to kochi. so i'm hoping that nothing untoward happens. on a related tangent, i can't believe that even now, almost a year since COVID was first announced, there are people who claim that it's a hoax and who refuse to follow safety protocols because it infringes on their individual liberty or something like that. just google "america covid" and look at the graph. makes me grateful that the US JETs only arrive after we're already in our placement locations. well...morons will be morons.

my first online shopping experience in japan was very positive! due to baggage weight limits, and unavailability of some items/sizes, i continued my uniqlo shopping in japan. i placed an order on their online store (taking a bit longer because i'm slow at reading katakana), and filled in the details the best i could. i was surprised that they offered cash-on-delivery as a payment option! perhaps credit cards aren't as prevalent in japan as they are in singapore. it certainly helps people like me though! i'm mildly annoyed that they restocked some items after my first round of shopping, because i paid more for a similar item that wasn't on discount. and returns for a refund require a japan bank account, which i don't have yet. worse, by the time my japan bank account is set up, i'll be in kochi. and it'll cost more to ship the item back to tokyo for the refund! so, i'm just going to take it as an unfortunate case of bad timing. besides, 1100 yen (about SGD 14) is far from the most money i've spent on an unnecessary purchase. and in my defense, it was deemed necessary at the time (white-coloured heattech for layering underneath my work clothes). so i shouldn't beat myself up over it.

so far, i've been thinking about money matters with reference to singapore dollars. what this means is that say i want to buy something from the convenience store, and the price is 300 yen. i'll have to do  a quick mental calculation to get the value in SGD. for mathematically-handicapped me, the fastest way is just to remove the last two zeroes, but that'll only give an approximation. the actual conversion is 1000JPY = about 13 SGD. i suppose the reason i do this is because i'm familiar with SGD, and it kind of gives me an anchor/reference point. although it makes me wonder if i should start thinking in yen. like, in relation to percentage of my monthly salary. that might help me form an anchor here too.

there are some questions which are rattling around in my head, but to which i don't have the answers now. questions like - would i be ok with living in rural japan for an extended period of time, or even all my life? is it necessary for me to chase after some high-powered job? what do i want a high-powered job for, anyway? i'm hoping that my time here will help me to settle upon an eventual direction in life.

guess that's all for now. all in all, i'm settling quite nicely into japan...although that's not saying much since this is still temporary accommodation. i've still got orientation activities over the next few days, sending my luggage in advance to kochi on thursday (repack before then!), and flying over myself on friday. since they were considerate enough to not schedule any activities for us over the weekend, should probably make the most out of my free time and get some laundry done. the dry air here means that clothes dry faster, which is an unexpected plus side.

-random thought of the day: Can scarcely believe that I'm in Japan!-